


Should You Need to Come Undone

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Dysphoria, Established Relationship, Lingerie, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nonbinary Character, Strap-Ons, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:01:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Herbert comes home early one evening and finds Dan laying in bed with some lingerie and jumps to some incorrect conclusions before realizing two things: the lingerie is for Dan, and he looks HOT in it.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	Should You Need to Come Undone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deathlybijoumme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathlybijoumme/gifts).



> May I present to you the exciting companion concept to trans!Herbert: nonbinary!Dan. This headcanon is Idris's baby but I am nothing if not fond of writing for my friends.

The more time went on the less urgent it seemed that the work was not going to be completed in Herbert’s lifetime. When he’d been in school the prospect that he’d die before he finished had been unacceptable, and for some years after, as well.

And then he and Dan had almost been killed one two many times, moved to the other side of the country together, and it had clicked into place, finally, horribly, that to some extent Herbert was responsible for the happiness and well-being of this other person who he’d fought very hard not to lose.

It was no longer the case that if something happened to Herbert in his frantic rush to complete the work nothing would be lost beyond his mind's contribution towards untangling the problem of reanimation. There was having a research assistant to carry on without him, and then there was loving Dan. Dan wouldn’t cope well with losing him, at least not well enough to remain a good scientist in his stead. Herbert knew because if he lost Dan he’d be the same.

So he’d made concessions. The basement of their house now held only boxes, paperwork, and garden tools. The odd practical test, down to about one or two a year, happened in an abandoned farmhouse several miles through the empty landscape separating them from the nearest town. He’d learned to drive, which, especially in the winter when the ground was covered in sheets of ice and drifting snow, felt like stronger evidence of his love for Dan than anything to do with the work.

Everything was less urgent now. Some things even felt easy. Coming home to Dan, making dinner together, felt easy. Talking about their day jobs, their pasts, their plans, felt easy. It wasn’t something Herbert could imagine risking, not even for something as important as the work. Not anymore.

Which was why shouldering into their bedroom after taking care to enter the house quietly one evening, home early on a day he knew Dan was off work, only to find Dan lying on the made bed and fingering a pair of lacy red panties and looking morose, made something seize up inside him.

Several possibilities flitted through his head as he stared at Dan, who had looked up at him and gone so white and guilty Herbert took it as instant confirmation of all his worst fears. Either Dan had finally gotten tired of him and had a woman over here while Herbert was meant to be out for the evening, or he’d decided for some perverse reason he wanted to see Herbert in lingerie, something Herbert had never explicitly brought up as a hard no but which he thought had always been implied by the way he was and the way he presented himself. Either possibility made Herbert feel almost sick with grief and anxiety.

It had been almost unbearably hard, the first time, letting Dan in. Letting Dan see all the ways he was and wasn’t quite the sort of man Dan might have assumed. Letting Dan see the scars on his chest and what he did and didn’t have between his legs, letting Dan touch him. And then it had gotten easier. Loving Dan had gotten easier, because Dan was very good at loving him, had never pushed, never prodded, never made assumptions, and didn’t treat Herbert like some sort of object. The idea he might have bought him lingerie was almost worse than the idea he’d fucked someone else in their bed and was now fondling her left behind clothes.

Herbert wanted to die, looking at Dan looking at him like he’d just been caught in the act. He wanted to yell, to put some emotional distance between himself and the person he’d thought, until just a moment ago, was the love of his life, the only one who’d ever come close to understanding him. But the requisite anger was nowhere to be found. He was just sad. Painfully, devastatingly sad.

“Herbert!” Dan yelped finally, breaking what felt like an hour but couldn’t have been more than three seconds of silence. He scrambled off the bed and shoved the offending article of clothing into a small gift bag on the floor. Ah. It was the latter then, Herbert thought, breathing hard through his nose. Dan hadn’t had someone over here, he’d just bought Herbert the sort of present that made Herbert’s dysphoria ramp up in a way it hadn’t in years.

“I hope you don’t expect me to wear those.” Herbert meant it to come out accusatory, but his voice was so small that he winced. Dan’s expression shifted into confusion.

“What?”

Herbert swallowed and took another breath, trying to think how to explain what he was feeling. “Why do you have that?”

Dan looked immensely guilty again. “I thought…” He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tic he’d had for as long as he’d been growing his hair out. Herbert noticed his nails were short and ragged and registered on some level that Dan must have been feeling guilty and anxious all day, because he generally took good care of his nails unless he had something on his mind. “I thought you of all people would understand.”

“Me of all people.” Herbert repeated. A third possibility was starting to form in Herbert’s mind, coalescing around Dan’s bitten down nails and the way he was still tugging a strand of hair between his fingers. The way Dan seemed to cycle through pride in and aversion to his own body, often vastly preferring to please Herbert with little regard for himself when they were in bed together. The months after they’d come back from Peru where Dan hadn’t liked to be touched, and how it had gotten better after he’d shed some of the extra muscle he’d picked up while they were at war. How he’d grown back into a sort of softness Herbert hadn’t realized he’d missed from their time at school.

Dan was talking again. “Yeah, I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t expect you to be home until late.” He kicked the bag under the bed, looking disgusted with himself as he stared at the wall several feet to Herbert’s left. “Meg told me once I looked good in red. I guess I wanted to surprise you.”

“Oh.” Herbert breathed, relief flooding through him so fast he felt almost lightheaded with it.

Dan flinched and crossed his arms, then shook his head. “Sorry.” He tried to push past Herbert out of the bedroom and Herbert grabbed his arm.

“Don’t.” Herbert looked up at Dan, at the guarded expression on his face, the tightness of his mouth, and felt a surge of confused remorse. He leaned up on his toes to press a kiss to Dan’s lips, let Dan catch his weight and hold him, felt Dan clutch at him and breathe shakily, leaning his forehead against Herbert’s.

“I love you,” Herbert said, choosing his words slowly and deliberately, “and you’re right, I of all people should understand. So tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s not the same.” Dan was quick to clarify, leaning back to look Herbert in the eye. “I know it’s not the same, I don’t… I’m not a woman.”

“Thank god for that.” Herbert said with a raised eyebrow, and Dan’s face relaxed slightly as he smiled.

“It’s just that I’ve never felt like I make a very good man, either.”

“Because you want to wear women’s underwear?” Herbert quipped, and regretted it when Dan flinched again. “No, I’m sorry, I know it’s more than that.”

“I think part of the reason I loved you at first was because you seemed to be in the same boat.” He said, and then looked apologetic. “Not that you’re not a man, Herbert, I just meant—”

“I know what you meant.” Herbert snapped, then sighed. “I think you’d look lovely in lace.”

Dan’s hands settled on Herbert’s back, pulling him into a hug. “You don’t have to say that. It was stupid of me to try and spring this on you.”

“I was scared you wanted something from me I couldn’t give you.” Herbert said, safe against Dan’s shoulder and knowing he couldn’t see his face. “I thought they were for me.”

“Oh!” Dan sounded relieved. “Oh, okay, yeah, I can see how that would… no, Herbert, I wouldn’t have bought you women’s clothes. I didn’t even really buy them for me as _women’s_ clothes, not really, more because…”

Herbert let Dan nuzzle into his hair silently for a moment before he prodded him. “Because what?”

“I want you to look at me and see something… I don’t know.” Dan sounded frustrated, and Herbert leaned up to kiss him again.

“Go change your clothes.”

“No, Herbert, I don’t—”

Herbert kissed him harder, pushing him against the doorframe of their bedroom and feeling a little smug at the way Dan gasped. “Go change,” he sucked a mark below Dan’s ear, “your clothes.”

Dan retrieved the bag from under the bed and retreated into the bathroom, and Herbert took a breath and let the tension out of his shoulders. This was the direction he’d intended this evening to head, anyway, just in a less roundabout way and with fewer revelations about Dan’s well-hidden insecurities. He crossed to the chest of drawers and dug a few items out to set on the bedside table. He wondered if he ought to sit down and wait. Or go stand by the bathroom door so he could push Dan up against the wall when he came out.

As it happened, any capacity for planning left Herbert’s mind the instant Dan opened the door. Herbert wasn’t sure what exactly he had been expecting, other than that however he felt about it he was determined to make sure Dan felt good, but Dan looked _sexy_. His long legs looked even longer in tights that ended high on his thighs in scalloped swirls of lace, held up by straps attached to his tight, clinging panties. Herbert stared openly at the outline of Dan’s cock, lightheaded again.

“Herbert?” Dan said after a moment, tentative, almost shy, and Herbert swallowed and yanked his gaze up to meet Dan’s.

“You look gorgeous, Danny.” Herbert’s voice came out hoarse, and he swallowed again as Dan moved towards him.

“Good.” There was unadorned relief in Dan’s voice, and when he stepped into Herbert’s space Herbert couldn’t kiss him fast enough. He twined his fingers in Dan’s hair to pull him down faster and heard Dan let out a gasp. The sound turned into a soft moan when Herbert drifted his free hand along the lacy edge of Dan’s tights, feeling his smooth skin against his fingertips.

“How did you shave your legs that fast?” Herbert asked when they parted for air, and Dan laughed breathlessly.

“I did it before I went in for rounds this morning.”

Herbert hummed. “So you’ve been planning this all day?” He said against Dan’s throat, mouthing at his pulse, feeling his breath come quick and fast.

“Yeah.” One of Dan’s hands fluttered by Herbert’s wrist before closing around it and directing his wandering fingers to cup Dan’s cock through the shiny-soft material of his panties.

Herbert was wet even before touching Dan but feeling his cock, half hard and straining against red lace, makes him all but drip with it. “Oh, _Danny_.” He said again, and Dan shivered. “I’m going to fuck you until these are soaked and ruined, I hope you know that.”

“I can buy some more.” Dan said, sounding half drunk as he let Herbert maneuver him onto the bed.

Herbert grabbed the lube and strap-on off the bedside table and returned to the foot of the bed, where he set them down and kissed the side of Dan’s knee. “ _I’ll_ buy you more.” 

Dan looked down at him through half-lidded eyes, a pretty flush rising in his cheeks. The tights were a darker red than the lace holding them up, the color of blood, and Herbert wondered faintly if they’d been chosen for that reason specifically as he kissed along Dan’s thighs. He pressed a kiss to the head of Dan’s cock, feeling a spot of pre-cum spreading along the lace. He felt a smile spread across his face at the way Dan’s cock twitched again when he licked it.

Herbert watched Dan watch him as he put on the harness and warmed lube between his fingers. Neither of them spoke as Herbert pushed lace aside and slid a finger into Dan, then two, then three, before jerking his hand over his cock to coat it in lube as well. Pushing into Dan caused his head to fall back, and Herbert took note of the way his hair was now long enough to spread out on the comforter. He wondered, suddenly, what it would be like to pull Dan around by his hair. Whether Dan would like that.

Dan certainly liked having Herbert’s cock in his ass, if the sounds he was making were any indication. Little gasps and whimpers as Herbert fucked him harder, deeper, taking care to angle things so he was grazing Dan’s prostate. Fucking Dan always made Herbert feel powerfully possessive of him, protective, almost, and when Dan wrapped one leg around Herbert’s waist and tried to pull him closer Herbert felt lightheaded with want again. He wanted to watch Dan come like this, _make_ Dan come like this. Wanted Dan to come apart for him, only ever for him. His brief and vanquished fear that Dan had brought someone else into their bed floated through his mind and he pushed down the edge of the lace to take Dan’s cock in his hand. Dan moaned again.

“Herbert, _fuck,_ that’s good.”

“Good.” Herbert whispered. There was a bead of sweat rolling down his temple, and he could feel slick dripping between his legs, could feel the way the harness grazed against him, and it was _perfect,_ the way Dan said his name. The way Dan came under his touch, with Herbert’s cock in him. “Good boy.”

Herbert felt almost feverish with want as Dan came down, as he slid his cock out of him and tossed it aside. As Dan’s fingers curled up inside him, as Herbert shook against him when he came at last. They collapsed against each other on the bed, and Herbert listened to Dan’s breathing as it evened out. His heart beat painfully loud in his chest.

“I love you.” He said after a moment, and Dan kissed his forehead.

“You’re a good man.” Dan said, and Herbert scoffed.

“I’m not.”

Dan reached up the bed for a pillow which he smacked Herbert with. “Alright, you’re not. Do you want to go out for dinner or did you remember to bring home flour and zucchini like I asked you to?”

“I did remember, as a matter of fact, but if you’re offering to take me out to dinner I wouldn’t say no.”

Herbert felt Dan shrug. “It’s just that... Well. I might have also bought a dress.”

“Are you ready to go out in a dress?” Herbert asked, rolling over to look at Dan over the top of his glasses.

“No.” Dan said with a grin, and Herbert took the pillow and smacked him back.


End file.
